Tamora Carter

by Jim Hines

  Tamora counted slowly to ten in Korean, then skated into the lot. She approached the minivan, doing her best to look casual.

  Ms. Anna waved from the driver’s seat and rolled down the window. “Hello, Tamora. What happened to you?”

  Poor Karina. She’d been so certain about Ms. Anna.

  Ms. Anna must have stolen Karina’s phone, but had she hurt her? Tamora forced a cheerful smile. “I slipped in the mud. Is Karina with you?”

  “I’m afraid not. She asked me to pick you up and take you back to the house. She was pretty upset. The poor girl has been having such a rough time ever since her brother—”

  A small arrow thudded into the center of Ms. Anna’s forehead, sticking out like a miniature unicorn horn. A second followed, this one embedding itself in her chin. She yelped and jerked back. “What is this?”

  Tamora scowled at the roof where the pix were hiding. Couldn’t they have waited a few more minutes for her to try to get some information? “They’re pix arrows. They won’t kill you. They just knock you out for a while. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  Ms. Anna’s eyes drooped, and she smothered a yawn. “When did you figure it out?”

  “Karina and I met at the pizza place, not the skating rink.”

  Ms. Anna laughed softly. “Clever.”

  “She defended you, you know. She loves you.” Tamora reached into her backpack and pulled out a roll of duct tape. “When you wake up, you’re going to tell me what you’ve done with her. And then you’re going to help bring Andre, Kevin, and Lizzy back to our world.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because the goblins and the pix promised to let you live. Help us, and they’ll take you to Bansa. I get Andre and the others back. You get to go home.”

  She frowned. “Bansa?”

  “It’s what I’ve been calling your world.”

  “Humans. Always naming everything.” She sagged in her seat. “Send me home, and the queen will punish me for my failure.”

  “I’m sorry.” Given how Karina felt about Ms. Anna, the woman couldn’t be all evil, could she?

  “Take me to the refugees,” Ms. Anna said wearily. “Let me plead my case. I’ve grown accustomed to this world. I can help you, but you have to let me stay. Help me hide.”

  Tamora hesitated. Ms. Anna looked and sounded half asleep, like Dad after a double shift, but Tamora was more afraid now than she’d been on the way here. Her chest was a knot of ice. Her palms were wet. She could barely stop herself from backing away.

  “I’m sorry.” Tamora thought of the glass goblins, killed and left at the base of the willow. She straightened. “I don’t trust you.”

  “That’s wise.” Ms. Anna’s weariness vanished. She plucked the arrow from her chin. “Perhaps I should have taken you instead of your friend Andre. You’ve the spirit of a warrior.”

  Oh, crap. Tamora slid back from the van.

  “I’ve guarded that tree from its birth,” Ms. Anna continued. “I’ve seen every creature who passed through. You think I haven’t taken precautions against the pix and their poisons?”

  Faster than Tamora could see, Ms. Anna swung open the door and jumped out.

  More arrows jabbed Ms. Anna’s face. One struck her eyebrow. Another pierced her nose. She raised a hand to shield her eyes. The pix couldn’t put her to sleep, so they were trying to blind her instead.

  “Fall back, lass!” shouted Captain Coke.

  Tamora tried, but Ms. Anna’s arm struck like a snake, clamping Tamora’s shoulder and slamming her against the side of the van.

  Tamora went down hard. She’d taken worse hits at roller derby, but not many.

  “I didn’t want to curse Karina. I wouldn’t have, if you’d left well enough alone. I’m quite fond of the girl and her eccentricities. But I couldn’t have her snooping around the portal.”

  Tamora rolled onto her side and kicked Ms. Anna in the knee with her skate. Ms. Anna shrieked in pain and stumbled.

  “Turn that tripe-faced pox of an elf into a porcupine,” Fanta shouted, laughing as his arrow lodged in the tip of Ms. Anna’s nose.

  Tamora’s next kick missed. Ms. Anna danced easily to one side, then grabbed Tamora’s shirt and hauled her into the air. Her appearance had shifted. Her hair was fine-spun silver, her ears slender and lobeless. “You can’t beat me,” she said as she wrenched Tamora about, using her as a shield against the pix. “It’s not arrogance. I’m faster, stronger, smarter…we are objectively better than you.”

  No matter how Tamora pulled, scratched, and bit, the older woman’s arms remained as immovable as iron bars. “If you’re so much better, why did you need humans to fight your stupid war?”

  Ms. Anna pulled a knife from beneath her blazer. A thick, unfinished wooden handle held a blade of glassy blue stone, about six inches long. The inside of the blade was cloudy, like trapped smoke spreading upward from the hilt. Both edges were chipped sharp.

  A whistle from the roof seemed to signal a retreat. Pix fell back, their wings buzzing. All save Fanta, who yelled and swooped down, trying to get a clear angle on Ms. Anna.

  Ms. Anna pointed the knife at the charging pix. Shadows flowed within the blade.

  “I said fall back!” Captain Coke stood at the edge of the roof and loosed an arrow. The tiny fletching buzzed Tamora’s cheek as the arrow passed, striking Ms. Anna in her pointed ear.

  And then both pix froze. Ms. Anna twitched her blade, and the pix floated toward her. They shone like glass in the sunlight.

  “What did you do to them?”

  “They’re simply transformed,” said Ms. Anna. “What happens next is up to you. They could be restored. Or they could be destroyed.”

  Tamora stopped struggling.

  “Much better.” Ms. Anna released Tamora and opened the sliding door of the minivan. Both pix floated down into the padded seats, carried by the elf’s magic. “To answer your earlier question, we need humans because on our world—Bansa, if you prefer—we are vastly outnumbered. Savages like goblins and pix and the rest breed like your world’s rabbits. There are thousands of elves, but there are hundreds of thousands of those uncivilized creatures, burrowed away in the mountains and caves and swamps. For millennia, they kept to their place in the shadows. That changed when the nameless one joined their lot to lead them against us.”

  “The nameless one?”

  “My queen has ordered that none speak his name or title.”

  “The Dead King. Got it. But how can three people make a difference?”

  “Any elf is worth a hundred of you in battle,” she scoffed. “But my queen needed to defeat not just our enemies’ armies, but their very souls.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.” The knife had disappeared. Anyone who came out now through the back of the rink would see nothing but two people having a tense conversation. “To kill flesh, you use blades. Or bombs and bullets, in this world. To kill the soul requires a more powerful weapon. To kill the soul, you use story. So my queen invented a prophecy.”

  “Invented it? You mean the prophecy is a lie?”

  “A story,” Ms. Anna corrected. “To break the will of our enemies. All these years we’ve waited for that story to take root, building a foundation of hopelessness and inevitability. The instant I sent my three puppets through the willow and into the arms of my queen, our enemies knew their end was near. Their courage failed. You’ve met the goblins and the pix. You’ve seen their despair, their hopelessness.”

  “Why not make a prophecy that the elves would win? Why drag humans into your war?”

  “Very good, child. To be believable, the prophecy required drama. Something strange and exotic. Like humans. You’re unfamiliar, and therefore more frightening to those superstitious fools than anything on our world.” Ms. Anna smiled slightly. “This is nice. It’s been so long since I’ve been able to speak openly, to be myself.”

  “What’s going to happen to Andre, K
evin, and Lizzy after your war?”

  Her smile grew. “Don’t trouble yourself with their fates, Tamora. You’ve more than enough to worry about.”

  Tamora fought back tears of despair and helplessness. “Please tell me.”

  “Your friends have seen and experienced too much, and my queen is too wise to allow any loose ends. If it’s any comfort, their deaths will be swift.”

  Tamora punched Ms. Anna in the nose as hard as she could. Before she could follow up, the elf struck her on the side of the face. Tamora’s ears rang. Ms. Anna picked her up and shoved her into the van, where the two glass pix lay frozen in the middle seats.

  Ms. Anna touched her nose, which had begun to drip blood. “The sooner you stop fighting, the sooner I can leave you in peace. Tell me where the goblins and pix are hiding.”

  Tamora shook her head.

  “All right.” She snatched up Captain Coke and snapped off one of his wings, as easily as breaking a twig.

  Tears dripped down Tamora’s cheeks. She clenched her jaw. Ms. Anna shrugged and removed another wing.

  “I know where you live, Tamora. Your brother…your father…even that ridiculous dog. You got them involved when you brought a goblin into your house. What happens next to your friends and family is on your shoulders.”

  The words twisted in Tamora’s gut. They hurt all the more for being true. If she’d simply skated away from Gulk and Pukwuk instead of confronting them…

  “Maybe you need time to marinate in your despair.” Before Tamora could react, Ms. Anna hurled the pix to the ground.

  Tamora turned away, but she couldn’t block the sound of glass shattering on the blacktop. A sob broke from her deep in her chest. She positioned herself between the elf and Fanta, glaring up in silent, furious defiance.

  Ms. Anna simply chuckled and removed one of the remaining arrows from her face. She flicked it at Tamora.

  Tamora raised her arms. The arrow stung the meat of her palm. Her hand went numb.

  Shadows edged her vision. The last thing she saw was Ms. Anna bringing an iridescent blue ribbon toward Tamora’s throat.

  Chapter 13: Peahen

  Tamora’s vision was all wrong. Her depth perception was off, and she could see too much of the poorly lit world to either side of her—a dirt path winding ahead through trees and bushes, a low brick-walled building to her right, a park of some sort to the left—everything except what was directly behind her.

  She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. The movement knocked her off balance. She spread her wings—

  Wait, wings?

  “Oh, good. You’re awake.”

  Tamora spun around. Ms. Anna towered over her in the darkness. She’d restored the illusion of her human appearance. Tamora instinctively backed away, her talons scraping the dirt trail.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll be safe here, as long as you behave.”

  It was nighttime. Behind Ms. Anna stood a tall gate of black metal. The nearby building smelled like greasy food and popcorn. The air also carried the smells of other animals: sweat and urine and old hay and droppings.

  I’m at the zoo, Tamora thought.

  “You’re at the zoo,” Ms. Anna explained, as if Tamora couldn’t figure that out for herself. “You’ll blend right in. They have a number of peafowl running free. Mind you don’t get too close to the bars of the predators’ cages. I spent a lot of time preparing those ribbons, and I’d hate to see this one wasted in the belly of a snow leopard.”

  A peafowl? Tamora stretched her wings and gave them a tentative shake.

  “I took the liberty of clipping your feathers. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself trying to fly out of here.” She tapped her chin. “Ah, yes. The next thing you’re likely to try is scratching a message to the zookeepers when they arrive. Don’t trouble yourself. I wove a bit of linguistic magic into that ribbon, similar to what the willow gives those who pass through it. But where the willow allows people to speak and understand the dominant tongue, the ribbon has the opposite effect.”

  Tamora started to trace the first letter of the alphabet in the dirt. She dug a crooked line and hesitated, trying to remember what came next. I can’t write.

  As frightening as it was to be trapped in the body of a bird, it was this revelation that pushed her into panic. She cried out in distress. Not only couldn’t she write, but when she looked at the signs on the building, she couldn’t read, either. The elf had stolen her language.

  Or had she? Gulk and the others had learned English when they came through the portal. They hadn’t learned other languages. If this was a reversal of the willow’s magic… Tamora turned away and tried again. Blocking Ms. Anna’s sight with her body, she traced three Korean syllables in the dirt.

  한국어

  It was difficult to balance, and the characters were all but illegible, but she’d done it. With practice, she might be able to write more clearly. Or she could try to draw pictures. She flapped her wings, sweeping the characters away.

  “I’ll return tomorrow to see if you’ve come around. If not, I’ll bring further persuasion. You should know the longer you resist, the more the magic will seep into your mind, erasing who and what you used to be. Who knows? You might be happier living out your short life as a peahen. You’ll be fed and cared for, with plenty of company.”

  Tamora charged and tried to jab Ms. Anna with her beak.

  “Such spunk.” Ms. Anna laughed as she dodged aside. “Be careful, girl. Remember your place on the food chain.”

  Before Tamora could try again, Ms. Anna scaled the fence and jumped down on the opposite side, as easily as if she were climbing a ladder.

  Tamora screamed in frustration. The sound that emerged was more like the yowl of an angry cat with a megaphone. Other peafowl responded in kind from throughout the zoo. In a nearby cage, a bald eagle ruffled its wings in annoyance.

  She was trapped. Ms. Anna had murdered the leader of the pix. The Elf Queen was going to do the same to Andre and the others. And Tamora had no way to stop any of it.

  She wanted to cry, but her new form wouldn’t let her. Instead, she stepped off the trail and sat in the grass. She yowled again, trying to overpower the sound of shattering glass playing over and over in her head, interrupted only by the snap of broken wings.

  Mac had offered to help, but she’d refused. She was T-Wrex, queen of the goblins, who’d beaten a dragon. She didn’t need help from Mac or her father or Karina or anyone else. Just a handful of pix to back her up. Pix who’d trusted her, even as she ignored their warnings about how dangerous elves could be. And now one of those pix was dead.

  I’m sorry. Would the other pix return for his body? Or would he be mistaken for a broken bottle and swept up by whoever was working at the rink tonight? I’m so sorry…

  What would Ms. Anna do with Fanta? Fanta, who’d ignored orders to try to rescue Tamora. If Tamora didn’t tell Ms. Anna where the goblins and pix had gone, Fanta would join his captain.

  She couldn’t let that happen. She imagined her coach’s voice urging the team to get back up, to skate through the exhaustion and the bruises. Everybody falls. The winning team is the one that won’t stay down.

  She needed her team. She needed Karina and Mac and the goblins and the pix. She needed Mac’s knowledge and Karina’s magic.

  But first, she needed to get out of the zoo.

  She stood and twisted her head about to better see what she’d become. This form lacked the big tail feathers she’d expected. Peahens weren’t as fancy and colorful as the peacocks. Her chest was white, with darker feathers on her back. Her wings were trimmed, just as Ms. Anna had said. No matter how hard she flapped, she couldn’t get enough lift to leave the ground.

  She tried scraping her neck against a bush to try to catch or tear the ribbon Ms. Anna had used to transform her, but the ribbon seemed to have melded into her feathers or skin. All she got for her efforts were some scratches.

  She spent the next hour pacing the outer ed
ge of the zoo, searching for a break in the walls and fences that might allow her to escape. She’d been here many times with her family, and once as part of a class field trip, but they’d always stuck to the paths. Under other circumstances, she would have loved the chance to explore the off-limits areas of the zoo. Instead, every step she took, every passing second, weighed her down with the knowledge of what the Elf Queen planned to do.

  How long until the zookeepers arrived? They’d have to be here before the zoo opened. Her best chance might be to wait by the front gate and rush out the instant it opened. Most people wouldn’t know how to react to a crazed peahen yowling and sprinting for freedom.

  She stopped in front of the kangaroos, who were sleeping in their stone-walled enclosure. Suppose she did manage to escape. What then? It wasn’t like she could hop on the CATA bus for a ride home. Where would she go? Ms. Anna was the only person who could change her back.

  Another peacock cried out from down by the penguin area.

  If Tamora told Ms. Anna about the junkyard, more goblins and pix would die. If she didn’t, Fanta would die. Ms. Anna had threatened Tamora’s family as well. How was Tamora supposed to choose who lived and who died?

  The peacock cried again. Or was it a peahen? Tamora couldn’t tell the difference. She turned toward the source of the cries, a new thought stirring hope and excitement in her chest. What was it Ms. Anna had said?

  I spent a lot of time preparing those ribbons…

  Ribbons, plural. The ribbon she’d used to transform Tamora wasn’t the only one.

  Karina!

  Tamora shouted back, the loud maow echoing through the zoo. Any of the other peahens could be Karina, transformed and trapped. She called again, listening closely for answering cries, and began to run.

  The first peahen she found was perched atop a wall by the duck pond. That wouldn’t be her. Ms. Anna had trimmed Tamora’s wings, and had doubtless done the same to Karina, making it all but impossible to reach a high perch.